Published: June 5, 2011
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces fired at protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday after protesters tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks.
Wave after wave of Syrian and Palestinian protesters from Syria approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire at activists who crossed a newly dug trench and tried to breach the border fence near the Golan town of Majdal Shams.
The Syrian news agency SANA reported that 19 protesters were killed and more than 270 were wounded. Citing the director of a Syrian hospital in the border town of Quneitra, the agency said that two of the dead, aged 19 and 29, had been shot in the chest and the head respectively.
An Israeli military spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity under army rules, said that “despite numerous warnings, both verbal and later warning shots in the air, dozens of Syrians continued to approach the border.”
She said the soldiers tried to disperse the crowds with non-lethal means, including teargas, but that did not deter them. The Israeli forces were “left with no choice,” she said, “but to open fire at the feet of the protesters in order to deter them from further actions.”
In the West Bank, there were clashes between Israeli soldiers and scores of Palestinian youths who tried to march on the Qalandia checkpoint, the main gateway between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Some of the youths had slingshots and hurled stones at the soldiers. The soldiers fired tear gas and, according to some reports, rubber bullets.
But the borders with Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan were quiet as governments there prevented protesters from reaching the frontier.
Conversely, the thousands of protesters at the Syrian border, which cannot be approached without government acquiescence, appeared to reflect a calculated strategy to divert attention from the uprising there. President Bashar al-Assad, who is facing the greatest challenge to his family’s rule in four decades, also opened the border three weeks ago; four Syrian protesters were killed then.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed “extremist elements” for trying to break through Israel’s borders.
“We will not allow them to do so,” he said at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, adding, “I have instructed the security forces to act with determination, with maximum restraint, but with determination to maintain our sovereignty, our borders, our communities and our citizens.”
In Gaza, only a few dozen Palestinians tried to walk to the Erez checkpoint on the border with Israel, but Hamas forces stopped them well before the crossing and they dispersed peacefully.
Israel had braced for clashes after Palestinian activists in the region called for protest marches on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the June 1967 Middle East war, which Palestinians call the “naksa,” or setback. The Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza were among the territories Israel captured in that war.
There were also calls for Palestinians in Lebanon to march at the Israeli border, but activists there canceled those plans after the Lebanese authorities declared the border area a closed military zone.
The confrontations on Sunday echoed the events of May 15, the day Palestinians mark as the “nakba,” or catastrophe, of Israel’s establishment in 1948. Taking a cue from the so-called Arab Spring movement, organizers in multiple countries and territories called for a coordinated action against Israel, and huge crowds of Palestinians responded.
They clashed with Israeli troops on four fronts, and breached the border between Syria and the Golan Heights for the first time in more than 30 years. At least 14 protesters from Lebanon and Syria were killed, stoking outrage in Palestinian camps across the region and intensifying pressure on Israel to create the conditions for a return to peace talks.
The Israeli military had been preparing for a repeat of the May 15 protests, and Israeli television reports showed soldiers repairing and fortifying fences and bulldozers digging trenches and laying barbed wire along the borders in the north.
On Saturday, Palestinian officials signaled another possible source of pressure on Israel, saying they would accept a French proposal to attend a peace conference in Paris next month with the aim of restarting negotiations based on the broad principles laid out by President Obama last month.
Mr. Obama said that talks should be for a future Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps. He also suggested that talks should focus first on the issues of borders and security, and deal later with the contentious issues of the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war and their descendants.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that in principle, the French proposal was acceptable. He told the Reuters news agency on Saturday that under the plan, neither Israel nor the Palestinians would carry out “unilateral actions.” The Palestinians have demanded a freeze in Israeli settlement building, while the Israelis oppose Palestinian plans to bypass negotiations and seek recognition for statehood at the United Nations this fall.
There has been no public response to the French plan from the Israeli side, but Israel has previously rejected talks based on the 1967 lines. Moshe Yaalon, the minister for strategic affairs in the Israeli government, told Israeli television on Saturday that Israeli leaders would discuss the French proposal this week.
In a sign of growing frustration in Gaza, travelers tried to force their way through a crossing on the border with Egypt that was temporarily closed Saturday, a week after the new Egyptian government declared it open permanently in a move hailed by Palestinians as an end of the Israeli-led blockade of the coastal enclave.
Officials of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, said they had not been told in advance about the closing. Egypt said it was a result of delays in renovation work that should have been completed on Friday.
Dozens of Palestinian travelers gathered in front of the closed gate leading to the Egyptian side of the crossing in the morning. Peering through barbed wire next to the gate, they realized that it would be impossible for buses to pass through because of the work on the other side. After waiting for three hours, the travelers forced open the gate and entered the Egyptian section. The Egyptian police persuaded them to return peacefully.
After Hamas took full control of Gaza in 2007, Israel responded by cutting off the territory, and Egypt kept the crossing mostly closed. In June 2010, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt ordered the crossing to reopen on a regular basis, but conditions for travel remained tightly restricted. The border was sealed again in January, when Egypt was rocked by protests that eventually ousted Mr. Mubarak.
The re-opening of the crossing last Saturday was seen as a sign of a new approach, giving Gazans a gateway to the world that bypassed Israel. But complications have already emerged. By Tuesday, Hamas officials were complaining that the movement of travelers was being limited and that dozens had been returned from the Egyptian side.
NYT
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